Scholars have long puzzled over the lack of Spanish-based creole languages in Latin America, especially given the more than 400 years of rich and varied Afro-Hispanic linguistic contacts and the large number of creoles with English, French, and Dutch lexical bases. The two existing creoles which might be considered as Spanish-based (Papiamentu and Colombian Palenquero) arguably have more Portuguese than Spanish roots. A number of explanations have been proposed for the scarcity of Afro-Hispanic creoles, including demographic ratios, social conditions, control of African slaving stations.

There is abundant if sometimes untrustworthy documentation of Africans' approximations to Spanish in the 18th and 19th century Caribbean, and most indicate only second language learners' creation of a rough pidgin. There is, however, a small residue of texts--and even some living memories--of speech forms which appear to suggest creolization of Spanish in the Caribbean. If Spanish did creolize, what happened to the creole(s)? Could vernacular Caribbean Spanish be a post-creole variety? If Spanish did not creolize, how does one explain the creole-like features found in some attestations?

The answers are as complex as the questions: Spanish may have briefly creolized in isolated plantation environments or remote placer mining operations. The present study offers an additional source of information on creoloid structures: the contact with other established creole languages which took place during the 19th century. Method, motive, and opportunity for transfer from creole languages to Afro-Hispanic pidgin are demonstrated. Large numbers of workers speaking Papiamentu, English-, French- and Dutch-based creoles arrived in Spanish Caribbean colonies after the Haitian revolts of the 1790's, and the convergent structures found in these Afro-Atlantic creoles partially shaped developing Afro-Hispanic language in certain environments. The strong Afro-creole presence may in turn have left a permanent imprint on vernacular Caribbean Spanish, reinforcing existing evolutionary tendencies and in a few cases producing innovative structures.